If global unrest, an essential revolution of racial justice and the ever-changing demands of COVID-19 are not enough expansive pressure, we are on the cusp of a bumper triple eclipse season that will increase the energetic and spiritual squeeze further. It is already asking us to grow rapidly psychologically, deepen spiritually, take emotional risks more potently and wake up to injustice.

So now is the time to start your eclipse season self-care to get ahead of the astrological dance and be able to stretch and stay steady in these unprecedented times.

On Friday June 5, 2020 at 12.12 pm USA PDT was the first lunar eclipse of the season.

Usually, an eclipse window holds two eclipses set two weeks apart. The window opens 3-4 days prior to the first eclipse and closes 3-4 days after the second one. This eclipse season we have three eclipses in a row, June 5, June 21 amplifying the solstice, and July 4. The eclipse window will essentially be open from June 1 to July 8. After that, we will breathe a sign of astrological relief. Phew! Expect some form of high-speed change this month.

The eclipse portal is the time in which the energetic and spiritual effects of the astrological are most apparent and intense.  If you are highly sensitive you may experience this 5-7 days in advance in more subtle ways.

At the start of the eclipse doorway opening, you can start to feel a sense of pressure or intensification, and this can generate a variety of symptoms including:

• A sense of heaviness or a downward pressure or tension. Even a sense of depression.
• An intensification of internal, psychological process.
• A knowing that things are “speeding up.”
• New insights and perceptions flowing in easily or rapidly or both.
• A sense that a lot of emotions, inner dynamics or personal history have started to clear from your system, this can be draining at times. Making room for the new.
• Struggles, challenges or more intensity in different areas of your life (particularly depending on which aspects of your chart the eclipse is impacting and accentuating).
• You may be suddenly faced with unexpected decisions in one or more areas of your life. Or have to let go.
• Or it simply feels tougher than normal.
• People around you are having a harder time than usual.

Not every eclipse is intense but I am naming some symptoms to help you recognize them. Some eclipses can have little impact on us and we cruise right through them. Yay! The more sensitive you are the more you may be aware of these eclipse doorways opening and closing. This does not mean you suffer more because of this awareness.

Over my two decades as a practitioner, at times I have seen clients particularly impacted so I suggest using a few tips from the following self-care guide.

I have been utilizing these tips in a variety of ways. I am a highly sensitive person; I sense the astrological shifts keenly and prefer to glide as sweetly as possible through these liminal times.

Here are a variety of eclipse self-care suggestions:

• Google the exact time and date of the eclipse event for your area and make a note of it.
• Respect the transformational power and grace of an eclipse
• Dedicate the time in and around the eclipse to spiritual practice of some kind. The heightened power of the eclipse events allows you to shift forward in great strides, to dissolve the residues of the past and release internal struggles in powerful ways. I love using an eclipse mantra practice to amplify this.
• Try not to watch the eclipse or be outdoors when eclipses are occurring if possible. During the exact time of the events (and an hour or two on either side) a lot of energies often shift on the planet, it can be energetically wild. So, it can be protective to be cocooned inside. In Vedic traditions, you are advised not to watch eclipses as it can trigger negative karma.
• Ask your spirit team, guides and angels to bring in extra protection for the eclipses and the entire window from early June to early July. Ask them to protect you from the intensity, astrological power, and negative influences of the eclipse and increase your energetic protection during this period. I love being protected from the sense of imposed pressure in particular.
• Reach out to your spirit team to help you with any clearing processes that take place to lighten the load in general, and especially when you feel big processes begin.
• Request your spirit team to make positive adjustments to your system to support your wellbeing in regards to the eclipses, the two full moons and the new moon in this eclipse window. This really works! I have used it with clients already this past week and seen them sigh, soften and relax with relief!
• Increase your self-care.
• Give yourself more rest and naps- intensification in healing and clearing process can take more of your energy reserves than normal.
• Be extra kind to yourself, knowing you are evolving quickly.
• Take care in relationships during this time as everyone is under pressure and we can all be more easily triggered.
• Cut yourself slack. Eclipses put us under enormous evolutionary impetus to grow and become the person we came here to be. Ultimately, they serve our awakening.
• Know you are often healing multi-lifetime and multi-generational patterns and transforming long ranging karma during these eclipses.
• Eat well and nourish yourself.
• I love to create an eclipse altar and have some kind of ritual to celebrate these powerful transitional times in my life. I add my intention to direct the positive forces of the eclipse periods.

Finally, choose a mantra. Practice it on the eclipse days in particular, and throughout this month-long window, to heal, release, and move forward on your spiritual path. Add intention to your mantra practice; focus on a goal or area of your life. I start a mantra recitation and ritual at least an hour before the eclipse and continue through an hour after it finishes. This allows me to utilize the superpower of the moon to my own evolutionary advantage, as have many spiritual traditions and practitioners through the ages.

Eclipses are powerful portals of personal transformation and we can utilize them to amplify our intentions and dreams for our future and to heal on our growing edges. They are times of immense liberation.

They are also liminal times, when the veils between the world become very thin, and we can receive knowledge from other dimensions, guidance from ancestors, nature, and other beings of light and feel closer than ever to our true nature.

I send you blessings as we transit this eclipse window together in such challenging global circumstances.

May our individual and collective transformation create real change that can relieve and heal this beautiful planet we live on, our communities, and our hearts at this challenging time. May it contribute to long-term change and enduring safety for all who suffer from the tyranny of racial oppression on this earth. And thus free us all. Let’s dedicate our eclipse journey to that and rise up.

What do you love to do during the eclipses? What helps you through them?