26 Jul Tainted Love ~ Lunar Eclipse in Aquarius- July 27th, 2018

On July 27th, 2018 there will be a Lunar Eclipse in the sign of Aquarius. Lunar eclipses are super amplified Full Moons and this one has an especially volatile tone.

The Full Moon in Aquarius will be conjunct Mars retrograde in Aquarius while making a t-square to Uranus in Taurus. Under these conditions, the wild and untamed elements of your unconscious will be unleashed.

Sometimes I feel I’ve got to

Run away I’ve got to

Full Moons occur when the Sun and Moon and oppose each other, offering the potential to harmonize the tension between polarities: masculine and feminine; rational and intuitive; Leo and Aquarius. Full Moons always represent a culmination of emotional energies, but an eclipse concentrates and amplifies that intensity.

Get away from the pain that you drive into the heart of me

Ultimately, this eclipse cycle on the Leo/Aquarius axis is evolving the archetypal expression of these signs in your psyche, making them more flexible and dynamic. Before this new flexibility can be achieved, you’ll have to massage out the kinks that have you too tightly wound.

The love we share

Seems to go nowhere

The sign of Leo is subjective, representing your capacity to idolize and be idolized. And Aquarius is objective, representing your relationship to universal ideals. During this volatile eclipse, the conflict between these signs will stir up angst. Tainted by the frustrated and aggressive energies of Mars retrograde, made all the more unstable by the electrical shocks of Uranus, you may feel like a disenchanted romantic.

And I’ve lost my light

For I toss and turn I can’t sleep at night

Though you may wince at the truth, the detached quality of Aquarius does offer an important critique of the glamorized spirit of Leo. And with the Moon and Mars reflecting upon the Sun, you will see the dangerous pattern of how your self-deceit leads to the dangerous condition of blind idealism.

Once I ran to you (I ran)

Now I’ll run from you

Expect the rippling waves of this eclipse to test the integrity of your most Aquarian ideals, finding some of the fatal flaws in your utopian fantasies. A sickening wave of alienation may arise.

This tainted love you’ve given

I give you all a boy could give you

The realm of Aquarius is dedicated to creating philosophical perfection, but the price is heavy isolation. You may feel burdened by truth, strangely alone in your thinking.

Take my tears and that’s not nearly all

These dark emotional currents will catalyze unexpected turmoil and betrayal. This lunar eclipse is a significant moment in the Mars retrograde summoning an uncomfortable confrontation with those whom you once trusted. Hot anger may rise, emerging from long forgotten depths.

Oh tainted love

The Sun in Leo will entice you to see yourself as one whose light is superior to the darkness you encounter. But the Moon/Mars conjunction square to Uranus will assault any false pride with fury.  

Tainted love

Aquarius rules the wilderness of the imagination and offers humanity the freedom to experiment and explore. But freedom is never free. Traditionally, Aquarius is ruled by Saturn, meaning that discipline and sacrifice are still the rules of the game.

This Lunar Eclipse will teach you that your highest ideals of love, freedom and beauty must be paid for with great sacrifice. Real love demands a tremendous amount of discipline and patience.

And you’ll think love is to pray

But I’m sorry I don’t pray that way

This lunar eclipse is a time for observing how easy it is to get caught up in a fugue of romanticism. The healing potential here is to learn to restrain your habit of over-idealizing and idolizing people or institutions, for this is how love becomes tainted. Having illusions about perfection in people inevitably leads to disappointment, which inevitably stirs bitterness and resentment.

Oh tainted love

To connect with the alienated emotions of this eclipse, I recommend listening to Tainted Love by Soft Cell. It’s a perfect song for an eclipse that’s wound up with the Mars and Mercury retrograde season.

Retrogrades are about reinvention and revision. Often times, during retrograde seasons great invention occurs as a reinterpretation of an existing creation.

To evoke a nostalgic and retrospective mood, listen to the opening notes of Tainted Love, one of the most recognizable moments in 1980’s synth-pop. In retrograde fashion, Soft Cell invented this sound by reinterpreting the original 1965 recording by soul singer, Gloria Jones.

The result was an idiosyncratic innovation of the original song, uplifted into pop history by stabbing synths and the raw anger of a broken heart. Like the energies of this lunar eclipse, Tainted Love has a sinister edge, a melodramatic fetish for unhappy romantic entanglements.

Don’t touch me please

I cannot stand the way you tease

The song grapples with timeless human weakness. There is great danger in over-idealizing a person, especially a lover. Idolatry is a narcotic form of escapism. It is addictive and creates the conditions for gross denial of anything that undermines the fantasy of perfection. Such extreme optimism demands that all reasonable doubts be suppressed.

I love you though you hurt me so

Now I’m going to pack my things and go

Whether your weakness is for a lover, a friend, or an ideology, at this Lunar Eclipse in Aquarius ask yourself where fantasies of perfect love have devolved into tainted love. Living in untenable fantasies leads to suffering. 

This eclipse may summon circumstances that are bitterly disappointing in your personal life or social group. Reality may seem to suddenly fall short of your expectations. But like the relationship between poison and antidote, these events contain the seed of wisdom that you need to break out of this bad habit.

Let the discomfort you feel inspire you to reach higher, purifying your heart by loving others with more sincerity. People are strange. But true love knows and accepts that fact. 

 

artwork by Alexandre Cabanel