Pisces Total Eclipse: The Shape of Clouds

Rest is not idleness,

and to lie Sometimes

on the grass under trees

On a summer’s day,

listening to the Murmur

of the water, or watching

the Clouds float across

the sky, is by no Means

a waste of time.

Sir John Lubbock

The Total Lunar Eclipse on September 7, 2025, at 15° Pisces

Intuitive awareness cuts through deception to illuminate what we are to complete as a new dream becomes visible. As human culture enters a paradigm shift, our lives resembles clouds: the shape of dreams, relationships and what we assign meaning, dissolves and is being reconstituted before our eyes.

 

Pisces Moon oppose Sun/Mercury conjunction

Total Eclipse Ruler: Neptune conjunct Saturn at apex of small grand trine

Venus unaspected and in exact quincunx with Eclipse Moon

Jupiter trine the Moon, sextile the Sun

North Node eclipse with North Node at apex of yod with Mars and Venus – wide

Saturn Retrograde in Pisces

Eclipse Path. The Blood Moon of the Total Eclipse will be visible across Asia, Africa and Western Australia. Many parts of Europe will see the Total Eclipse during the total phase as the Moon rises. While not observable in North or South America, its effects are global.

A Lunar Eclipse happens when a Full Moon comes close to the nodal axis. A Lunar Eclipse signals that we have arrived at a crucial crossroad. The resolution or closure of something in our lives is accelerated. Permanent changes and shifts are catalyzed. Eclipse energies are felt for up to 6 months after the eclipse. With the eclipsed Moon conjunct the North Node, endings are purposeful and the closure serves to free up energy to move in a new direction.

The house where 15 Pisces resides in our individual birth chart reveals the area of life where we a new dream is taking shape. In light of this, we recognize what no longer works and what we are ready to complete so obstacles or limitations to the new life are removed. We can expect a significant shift if we have natal planets between 12 and 17 degrees of Pisces. And if we have planets between 12 and 17 degrees of another mutable sign (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius), we will feel pushed to take a leap of faith to make needed changes.   

In those mirrors,

the minds of men,

in those pools of uneasy

water, in which clouds

for ever turn and shadows

form, dreams persisted.

Virginia Woolf

Total Eclipse Dynamics Conjure a Story of Clouds

A few years before my mother passed away, we spent time together going through the book, “Conversations with my Mother.” The book consisted of solely of questions and lots of space to write answers. The first questions asked about parents and ancestry, followed by questions about childhood and adult years, and concluded with questions about the elder years. Through the ten one-hour sessions it took to go through the entire book, many of her answers were familiar to me, but just as many of her answers revealed things I had never known and gave me new insights and connections with my mom.

Near the end of the book, questions were geared towards grandchildren and towards wisdom gained through life. In response to the question: what do your grandchildren have that you didn’t as a child, she said, “There is so much! There is all the technology, conveniences, and choices available that I never even dreamed were possible. The world is at their fingertips…literally.” She went on about the different forms of technology and what they offer. She had grown up in the age of radio, so she went on about the different mediums of communication and media. She went on about all the different options, everything from cereal brands to movies to watch, to careers available. Her grandchildren have many many things that did not exist or were not available to her growing up.

Then came the next question, “What did you have as a child that you wish your grandchildren could experience?” She became quiet, reflective. I wondered what she might say, what she had that they did not. And then softly, she said,

“I wish they had time to watch the clouds.”

I thought I understood what she was referring to, but I wanted to hear from her what she meant by it, so I asked, “What do you mean?”

She answered, “I don’t know that there is anything to mean. I just remember spending countless afternoons with siblings and friends lying on the grass looking up at the clouds. They are some of my favorite memories with my brothers and of my childhood. It seems like my grandsons have missed out on that. They always have somewhere to go and their schedules keep them so busy.”

As she talked, I remembered my childhood and watching clouds with my brothers and friends.  What had happened to a culture that nurtured the feeling of spaciousness and a luxury of time that inspired people to while away the time watching clouds?

Over the last years of my Dad’s life when we was living near me, I would weekly take him outdoors. Surrounded by the mountain we lived on, I would have us engage the trees and birds and streams and such. But his attention was always drawn to the clouds.

Inevitably, we would sit and watch and talk about the clouds – how they were moving, their relationship to the wind, where they were heading, the sun, the day... becoming absorbed in the grandeur and mystery of their presence. We would watch how they would make shapes and then shift and make new shapes before our eyes. When I would arrive at Dad’s in the afternoon to take him out, my day and mind were in high gear. Being with him and the clouds, I slowed down and my mind's eye gradually became focused on what was right in front of me. I noticed how I settled into myself. My mind would calm, my breathing would relax, my sense would sharpen and I would become more connected to myself and my surroundings.

When people look at clouds

they do not see their real shape,

which is no shape at all,

or every shape,

because they are constantly

changing. They see

whatever it is

that their heart yearns for.

Jose Eduardo Agualusa

Cultivate Receptivity

The Second of Three Pisces Lunar Eclipses in 2025 - 2026

A North Node Eclipse. The nodes are near the Sun and Moon during an eclipse. When they come within just a few degrees of a New or Full Moon, we see a total eclipse.  Th Total Eclipse highlights and accentuates the Pisces archetype.

The Pisces North Node calls us to Watch Clouds, or whatever version of that activity we feel drawn to do. This is the second of three north node Lunar Eclipses in Pisces in 2025 – 2026. The North Node points to the area of life we are to nurture as a key to the formation of our future self. The new dream taking shape will emerge in the space we leave open for it. Yes, there is the need to define, plan and keep to routines and schedules (Virgo Sun and Mercury), but we need to also embrace the polarity and prioritize time to woo and engage the mystery of life, open to intuition, and letting ourselves receive (Pisces Moon). Work, service and effort are needed (Virgo), but so is surrender, imagination and cultivating deep receptivity (Pisces).

As a water sign, Pisces is the formless waters – the oceanic womb from which all creation emerges and returns; inherently spiritual, mysterious, and divine, it inspires the experience of oneness.  It connects us with the unseen and the intuitive. We are in Piscean waters when we dream, are creative, engage our imagination, or connect with the romance of life. Watching clouds helps us disengage from the mundane world of tasks and timelines, of goals and definitions. When these fall away, we open to the dimension of poetry, mystery and magic - of the eternal, the unknown and infinite possibility.

The South Node points to the past, and how we have been living. It occupies the sign opposite the North Node. Virgo is opposite and in polarity to Pisces. Virgo is a sign of service, plans and routines. It is what we give to life. Pisces is a sign of presence and of receiving. 

We are to balance out time dedicated to giving outwards with giving ourselves the space to relax, open and receive. Modern culture’s value for productivity and activity can having us feeling guilty if we are not doing something. Watching clouds is the antithesis of this. Modern thinking says that time we cannot account for is wasted time, yet studies have shown that we are more productive if we have a balance between purposeful activity and downtime. We become healthier and more effective, better able to respond to what life brings.

We need time to receive and an activity that opens us up to this. Perhaps we would prefer to watch the stars in the night sky, watch the grass grow, or simply watch the rise and fall of our breath in our belly as we inhale and exhale. Doodling, gardening or walking in the woods would be activities that take us in the right direction, yet they still have us doing something and not in a state of complete receptivity.

The total Eclipse is less about putting our energy into something, and more akin to opening to the mystery of of the moment. We know we have found it when we lose track of time and feel - that for the time being - there is nowhere to go and nothing to do. In this zone, we can receive a new vision, get clear on what is working and not working, make sense of something that has escaped us, catch up with ourselves, and listen to our heart. We move beyond the limitations of our mind and of logic and open to something beyond what we know. Things come together or happen beyond our understanding and seem to bypass direct cause and effect laws of physical reality.

We may encounter a build up of exhaustion if we have not been regularly courting and cultivating a space of receiving. We feel the fatigue of just going, going, going all the time. We may also encounter the overwhelm or confusion from navigating modern culture and our lives. This is also part of the Pisces experience when the Pisces dimension of life has been devalued or ignored.

We may face and be ready to resolve  escapist or addictive behaviors that have taken hold in our life. Escapist behaviors can mimic the space of Watching Clouds, but ultimately numb and distance us from true receptivity. Pisces rules drugs, addiction, media and film, and all manners of escapist behavior.

Pisces rules deception and escapist activities are a form of self-deception where we imagine we are giving ourself a break, and imagine we are opening to intuitive messages. And to some degree, we may receive something, but there is a price to pay, a kickback that takes us further from ourselves the more we engage the behavior. 

We know we are opening the Pisces North Node Eclipse if we are

• Courting a new intuitive awareness

• Listening to our feelings and relaxing our reliance on our mind to analyze, define, and understand it all

• Creating relationship and trust with the unknown; opening ourselves to the mystery of it all

• Offering ourselves and others forgiveness and compassion

• Recognizing that there is no right way, no perfect way - we can allow life to unfold like a flower in its own time and way

• Feeling we can adapt and respond to life, and can relax our need to control or have things all figured out

• Recognizing what is ending and what is ready to be closed out and released in our life to make way for the new

• Opening to a spiritual perspective in which to hold and understand our life, the intensity of the human experience, what we are working through and the transformative changes happening within the collective

A cloud is never a mirror-

Words about clouds are clouds themselves-

If snow falls inside a cloud, only the cloud knows-

A cloud dreams only of triangles-

Clouds are in love with horizons-

The cloud that was gone would never come back-

Every lake desires a cloud-

A cloud is a cathedral without belief-

Clouds cannot see what we do under the umbrella-

Clouds are thoughts without words

Mark Strand

Making the Invisible, Visible

From Dream to New Dream

Water and Earth and the Virgo/Pisces Polarity

Clouds are made of water (Pisces) and earth (Virgo). Clouds are water that has evaporated from our seas and rivers and risen into the atmosphere. They would remain invisible without the earth element that has the water condense into ice crystals. The tiny size of the ice crystals allows clouds to float in the atmosphere despite water being denser than air. The presence of these droplets scatters light, making clouds visible. 

Clouds are like Dreams. Watching clouds, we can easily see shapes take form. Then before our eyes, we see them change and become something else entirely. What takes shape dissipates as the dream in the cloud is perpetually shaping and reshaping. If we try to grab or hold onto a cloud, it disperses.

In this decade, our lives resemble clouds, where the shape of our identity and purpose is undergoing a metamorphosis. We can no more wish a cloud maintain its shape than we can make our lives stay the same or return to the shape of something we wish would return. We are to welcome and find a new dream, a new meaning in the shape that is taking form.

As forms change, the boundaries and rules (earth) are redefined. It is a time to ponder what new skills or tools (Virgo Sun and Mercury) we may want to develop to apply to the life we see take shape.

Within each shape that takes form, there is a constant: our consciousness. We are prompted to remember that we are spirit masquerading in matter and that our journey is a spiritual one (Pisces North Node). Resolving the Pisces/Virgo polarity within us, we can release the fear and guilt that motivate us so we are free to shape our life guided by love and compassion.

Virgo and Pisces both focus on Healing. Virgo is our physical body and Pisces is our internal awareness and connections. Our body is the densest level of our being, and the last to clear in the healing process. We can have processed issues on a spiritual, mental, and emotional levels, but may still need to rewire neural pathways. Healing those deep layers requires Piscean modalities which engage the physical body with other levels of our being, such as breathwork, somatic therapy, expressive arts, yoga, tai chi, or qigong. Time in nature also helps rewire our brain and nervous system, allowing us to regain a sense of safety and agency. 

Virgo supports us in purifying and detoxifying the body and restoring balance to the body. Pisces restores balance through forgiveness and acceptance of ourselves and the world around.  Forgiveness is a way to clear the blocks to full receptivity.   

There is divinity in the clouds.

Lailah Gifty Akita

Questions we Ask Shape the Dream

New Moon Ruler: Neptune

Neptune recently entered Aries for the first time in165 years, indicating that collectively and individually we are primed for a new dream of how to live. This dream will be a radical departure from what we thought life was about. And in Aries, it is a dream we will be willing to stand in and fight for. It may simply be a reshaping of the dream we are already living, or it can be one that newly seizes and carries us into a new identity and way of moving in the world.

Neptune conjunct Saturn in Aries, which has not happened in over 6,000 years, is about making the dream (Neptune) a reality (Saturn). Yet, Saturn has just Retrograded back into Pisces and come October 22, Neptune will do the same. In January, they will return to Aries. Until then, they occupy the final degree of Pisces, a degree that signifies big endings and can be marked by extinctions, extreme closures, big karma and the removal of ways whose time has expired. We are in a cycle we have never been in before and have no frame of reference to. We cannot prepare but we can trust our intuition and the guidance we feel from the divine. Autumn may bring a grand finale to the shape of some cloud, some dream, some way of living. Piscean events can include issues with flooding, toxicity with water and drugs, pharmaceuticals, amplification of media, issues connected to the sea and shipping and oil. For us individually, we are to focus on the karmic healings and releases that are ready to happen. 

When we say to another, “What shape do you see in the clouds?” we may be wondering if they see the same shape we do, or we are truly curious about how they may see something differently. We are to ask questions of ourselves and others to open ourselves to a new perspective. Ruling the Total Eclipse, Neptune asks us to move beyond the boundaries that define or life to receive a spiritual perspective about what we are doing here. It may be useful to hear other’s perspectives on this or to imagine we are seeing ourselves for the first time and in this, how we might identify the shape we are seeing.

Neptune is also the planet of deception. If the shape of things is up to interpretation, than how do we know what is real and what is not. We don’t. So, the Total Eclipse can accelerate misinformation and confusion. Neptune rules the media and the stories it weaves. If media or culture does not operate in alignment with spiritual or universal values, than there is a greater propensity for dissociation, denial, phobias, forgetfulness, overwhelm, addictions, escapist behaviors and ultimately insanity – all ruled by Neptune.

To not fall into the Neptune trap, we are to cultivate Neptunian ideals of spiritual connection and compassion. If we ask the deeper questions about what is true for us, we can find a clarity and expanded awareness that allows us to sidestep the potential shadowy side of Neptune and Pisces. We will see through deception and false narratives so we can trust and move harmoniously with the shape of things to come.

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Liv By Design Astrology