This New Moon is a solar eclipse, and for some of us, it is the seeding point, the beginning of a longer story. It is an introduction to the first Aquarius Eclipse, with Pluto present in Aquarius, that any of us has ever experienced. What opens here will unfold across years, revisited and reshaped as the Aquarius Moon Family moves through its cycle.
The Burning Question of this eclipse is:
Where am I staying bound because it feels safer to think than to choose?
Aquarius is a sign that values clarity, objectivity, and intellectual freedom. Yet this eclipse exposes how easily analysis can become a distraction or an escape from decision-making.
The Moon simply asks you to notice where thinking could have replaced movement, and where staying undecided has actually, by default, become your decision.
The karmic knot here is hesitation rooted in attachment to familiarity, identity, approval and commitment. This eclipse will press gently but persistently on that tender spot, asking for honesty.
Overview - Let’s look at
* Journal prompts and ritual
* How I can help you
* New Moon Solar Eclipse at 28° Aquarius
* Aquarius as fixed, yang, air
* New Moon eclipses, out-of-sign dynamics and Saros Cycles
* The Aquarius Moon Family
* Aquarius III decan themes
* The astrological Conversation
* And finally
Journal Prompts
* Where am I analysing instead of deciding?
* Which commitments feel alive, and which feel habitual or inherited?
* What truth do I already know but avoid acting on?
* What would change if I trusted myself more than my explanations?
Let these questions sit for a time, or perhaps meditate on them as Aquarius is the sign of thoughts and the mind. They are meant to open space and dialogue, not demand immediate answers.
A Simple Eclipse Ritual
Spend a little time in silence, allow your thoughts to pass through your mind like drifting clouds. Consider yourself the Observer of those thoughts. When you feel ready -
Write down what currently feels tangled, unresolved, repetitive or is holding friction for you,
Circle what has been genuinely yours to choose. Cross out what is not.
Finally, note what impulses for change have been coming up for you during this Eclipse window. Does it require a risk, or movement? Will you be willing to take the risk as the lunar cycle unfolds. Reflect honestly on what has held you back before, and prepare to release that to support you now. Let that be enough. You do not need a full plan.
How I can help you work with this eclipse
When eclipses activate a chart, they tend to work below the surface first, rearranging priorities and your internal loyalties before external change becomes visible.
If this lunation touches your Sun, Moon, angles, or chart ruler, you may feel unsettled without knowing why. That discomfort or friction is often the first signal that something important is shifting, even if you cannot yet name it.
I can help you:
Understand how this Aquarius Moon Family unfolds for you personally - Identify which bonds, commitments, or roles are under review - Work consciously with eclipse timing rather than feeling destabilised - Translate this moment into clear, grounded next steps
The Asteri Sofia Kairos Aquarius Eclipse Workshop and/or the Workbook is available for download so you can do this for yourself for just $9 each:
I can help you find out how this Aquarius Moon Family unfolds in time, identify which areas of life are being restructured, and understand what you're being asked at each phase.
I offer a short Pre- recorded Eclipse Astrology Reading for £40 as well as a Moon Family Consultation for £80 which can track the longer story unfolding for you.
This time is is about learning when to wait, when to disengage or shed, and when a quiet decision will carry more power than a visible one.
The Nature of This Solar Eclipse
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly between the Earth and the Sun, temporarily obscuring the Sun’s light. Symbolically, it marks a moment when conscious awareness, the Sun, is overshadowed by the unconscious and instinctive, the Moon.
Chris Brennan of The Astrology Podcast, who has conducted extensive research on eclipses, has found that they usher in great beginnings and great endings. A New Moon Solar Eclipse, marks an ending, and release of the old story, at the same time as significant new beginnings being seeded in the Aquarius part of our charts.
Eclipse seasons can be intense, perhaps bringing accelerated change, pushing us toward decisive action, breakthroughs, or necessary closures. However, events may often be seemingly insignificant at first and grow into greater endings, creating room for significant beginnings over time.
Symbolically, an Eclipse is a moment where something once visible is obscured, only to return with deeper insight once the shadow passes. Once the light returns, like a bridge being crossed into new land, you can never go back, you cannot unsee this new land that is different to what you knew before. Just like tectonic plates shifting, so slowly the movement can barely be measured, but with absolute finality once a division is made.
A New Moon Solar Eclipse is like a supercharged New Moon, bringing less predictable outcomes. Developments seeded at eclipses tend to surface gradually, returning at key moments until a deeper shift has taken place. Alternatively, depending on chart placements, they can also be sudden, disruptive and significant, for example, we may see solar figures both fall from grace and rise from obscurity.
Rather than asking “What do I want now?” as you might on a normal Moon, this lunation is asking, “What story am I stepping into, whether I feel ready or not?”
New Moon Solar Eclipses — and Out-of-Sign Dynamics
When an eclipse is out of sign with the lunar nodes, the story becomes more nuanced. This New Moon is at the end degrees of Aquarius, while the North Node is in Pisces, next to Venus, the Planet of Love and Desire in her exaltation. It is the close proximity of the Nodes of the Moon with the lunation that creates the Eclipse.
Out-of-sign eclipses often describe moments of transition between narratives. The direction of growth is clear in principle, but can be emotionally unresolved or internally contradictory. You might have a sense of misalignment, overlap, risk or transition between narratives, such as:
* A turning point that does not yet make emotional sense
* Decisions that precede understanding
* A feeling of being “between chapters”
You may be asked to decide without yet knowing how it will feel. Emotional understanding and resolution should follow later. First comes honesty and the decision.
The Saros Cycle
Saros Cycles help us to see patterns and cycles in our lives, and also in mundance events in the collective. We can look back at the dates of the previous Saros Cycles in this series in 2008, 1990 and even 1972 and 1954 for those alive then.
We can also look at the 9 years between these dates, when there would have been a reversal of the nodes: the North Node would have been in Leo rather than Aquarius (or out of sign in Pisces) and the South Node in Aquarius rather than Leo, but the same axis would still have been activated.
Bernadette Brady offered us a delineation of this Saros series, which she classifies as 10 North, and NASA, (who classified the Saros cycles after she did her pioneering work), as Cycle 121; this is Event No 61 in that cycle.
The original aspects of the first Eclipse in this Saros Cycle, in the year 944, were a New Moon conjunct Mercury and Saturn. She advises us to expect a strong emphasis on communication, news, paperwork or a young person. We might also expect to feel tired and drained, and she cautions us to take things easy and to work through things one at a time.
Aquarius — Fixed, Yang, Air
Aquarius is a fixed air sign, ruled by Saturn and this shapes the tone of the eclipse. Air concerns ideas, meaning, systems of thought, the ways we connect to others through shared understanding and shared frameworks. It shows how ideas circulate, how we position ourselves within collectives, and how we understand our place in a wider social or conceptual field.
As a fixed sign, Aquarius resists change once commitment has been made. This lends loyalty, endurance, and principle, but this can also harden into stagnation or resistance and over-identification with a role, belief, or community.
As a yang or masculine sign, Aquarius is outward-facing and active. It acts externally on ideas. Decisions made here tend to have visible consequences, even if they begin internally.
At the time of this eclipse, where has rigidity or stagnation replaced relevance, and are your values still responsive to who you are becoming?
The Aquarius Moon Family
We might look at previous Lunar Cycles for insight into what is unfolding for us:
The Monthly Cycle: Reflect on what is ready for release now from the Full Moon in Leo, what was revealed or peaked 2 weeks ago, 29th January, and where are you now feeling friction?
The Six-Month Cycle: This New Moon connects back to the Full Moon in Aquarius 4th August 2025, What was culminating or revealed to you then, and what have you been releasing or beginning to compost since?
27 Month Moon Family Cycle: This Eclipse is the start of a larger Lunar arc that is only just beginning and will conclude in May 2028. Consider what long-term changes you would like to see over the next two years. Notice the synchronicities, signs and omens, any new beginnings and doors opening with ease for you at the time of this eclipse may guide you with this, do take notice, consider journaling your insights for future reference.
The Moon Families are a longer sequence of interconnected lunations. The Moon returns to the same part of the zodiac, but in a progressing phase relationship with the Sun that weaves a narrative over 27 months.
They offer timing by giving us the dates we might expect significant turning or pivot points in this story arc. These are the times we are likely to make adjustments to allow the story to flourish and our goals and dreams to grow.
This practice of connecting and linking the hidden threads of Lunar Cycles is outlined by Dietrich Pessin in Lunar Shadows III.
When a Moon Family begins with an eclipse, its themes are more significant and insistent; they tend to return repeatedly, each time asking for a deeper level of engagement. What emerges now is the first chapter of a longer narrative that could continue into a second Moon Family cycle and last 5 years. This seeding moment becomes even more significant.
* New Moon Solar Eclipse: 17 February 2026 at 28° Aquarius
* First Quarter Moon: 17 November 2026 at 25° Aquarius
* Full Moon Lunar Eclipse: 17 August 2027 at 24° Aquarius
* Last Quarter Moon: 16 May 2028 at 24° Aquarius
Each phase asks for a deeper level of honesty. The knot is gradually loosened over time, but only if you stay engaged with it.
This Aquarius Moon Family is most felt by those with planets or angles in the fixed signs, Aquarius, Taurus, Leo and Scorpio or the Air triplicity, Aquarius, Gemini and Libra, between 23 to 29 degrees. Also, those with Saturn as their Chart ruler or Lord of the Year.
Each phase revisits the same underlying questions, though in different forms. The New Moon is the seeding, the first quarter is the push for action, or an adjustment. The Full Moon is a peak, culmination or revelation, the final quarter is the final adjustment, a release and decisions about what to carry forward into the next cycle.
Celestia Astrology is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Paid Subscribers are invited to join Celestia Circle’s live monthly Zoom meetings exploring the Moon Families and how they impact you with a Workbook and support.
What is introduced here may feel subtle or ambiguous at first. Over time, its significance becomes clearer as the knot tightens or loosens.
Aquarius III — Bonds, Knots, and Tangled Thoughts
This eclipse falls in the third decan of Aquarius, this is a place concerned with entanglement, obligation, and the consequences of choices. It teaches us about the web of relationships, agreements, and mental patterns that shape our lives. A decan is a 10-degree division of the sign that carries its own unique themes and energies. The third decan of Aquarius is co-ruled by the Moon and Venus.
This decan asks us to examine what principles we hold, why and in what ways we are tied. Some bonds are sustaining, rewarding and protecting, while others are there because they have never been questioned or tested.
Kira Ryberg names this decan Bonds, Austin Coppock calls it The Knot, and the Wild Way Oracle names it Tangled Thoughts. Each illustrates the reality that we are shaped by what we believe, and also by what we remain tied to.
Here, we are asked to examine the agreements we live inside, many of which were formed unconsciously, by others or long ago. How often do we check which still support our growth, and which persist because they feel safer than uncertainty?
We navigate this complex web of connections, responsibilities, and choices in our lives, but here we are made aware of the impact of our bonds on our choices. This is the point where we must decide whether to stay bound by the familiar, in our comfort zone, trapped by our thoughts and analysis, or to take the risk of venturing into the unknown, to spread our wings and fly, and maybe there find our liberation.
The Threshold Moment - Tangled Thoughts
The image of the owl from the Wild Way illustrates this for us. In the card, we are shown the Owl, she stands poised to leave, packed and ready, holding her bundle, hesitating at the edge under a Full Moon. She reflects on how leaving will bring uncertainty while staying offers familiarity and safety, but also limitation. The pause is the moment before an irreversible choice.
“Much is left behind. ‘Should I really go? Or should I just stay here?’ With one mighty courageous flap of her wings, she disappears into the night. It is now time to ask yourself the same question: do I fly into the unknown and find my own way, or stay where I am stable and safe?”
We are given the keywords: Analysis, Into the Unknown, Karmic Entanglement, and Liberation.
The question is simple, and meant to be slightly uncomfortable: do I remain where I am known, or do I risk the unknown and find my own way?
Are you willing to accept what leaving would require of you?
Tarot Correspondence: Seven of Swords
The Seven of Swords is often reduced to themes of deception or the need to navigate a tricky situation with care, but in this context, it carries more nuance. This is a card of strategy, discernment, and selective engagement. It asks what is worth carrying forward and what must be left behind, even if leaving is uncomfortable.
Sometimes integrity looks like full transparency. At other times, it might look like withdrawing from a situation without explanation because further engagement would only deepen entanglement.
The card shows a figure on their toes, looking back over their shoulder at an encampment. We see two swords still upright in the ground, the figure carries the remaining 5 swords over both shoulders. The blades are in their hands and the hilts over their shoulder, obscuring their backward glance to some degree.
What do we do when we have clearly communicated our boundaries, but we find that our wishes or needs are disrespected?
The Swords symbolically represent our (or others) thoughts, ideas and words about the situation. We might have already used the first Sword with direct communication, but the 7 of Swords reminds us that such tricky situations may require us to respond differently, that we can use a different sword, even if this is not our preferred way.
We are the only ones responsible for our own actions and for maintaining our boundaries. Each situation may call for its own response, be clear on your own truth and use your skill with ideas, thoughts and words to find the appropriate response to protect yourself and your energy.
T. Susan Chang — Divided Mind
This verse captures the psychological complexity of this decan. Aquarius III lives between worlds, between thought and action, between inner truth and outer presentation, between loyalty and independence, between staying in the known or leaving for the unknown.
T. Susan Chang gives us this verse for Aquarius III, this is an excerpt::
*O Creature of divided mindBetween two worlds, I seek and find….
The thought within, the mask without;Knowledge in the face of doubt.Roles may shift, personas alterMy veiled intentions never falter…
The things I’ve stolen made me wise.For that, I can’t apologise.*
“The things I’ve stolen made me wise” is perhaps the most provocative line. It reminds us that knowledge is gained through experience, even when that experience required bending rules, breaking expectations, or stepping outside sanctioned paths. Aquarius is known as the Outsider; it is tasked with stepping outside of the agreed social niceties.
At the time of this eclipse, you may begin to recognise where you have outgrown a role but continue to perform it out of habit. You may see where your internal convictions have shifted long before your outer life has caught up.
The Astrological Conversation
This eclipse is not alone in the sky. It unfolds in conversation and nuanced relationships with the other planets.
The New Moon is co-present with Pluto as well as Mars in Aquarius. This is the first time we are experiencing a New Moon solar eclipse in Aquarius with Pluto. Although the lunar nodes have not yet entered Aquarius, Pluto has already begun its long work of transformation, innovation, and collective empowerment.
Pluto’s transit will guide us through societal change, breakthroughs in technology, and a focus on humanitarian ideals. The new moon eclipse is likely to mark a significant seeding moment in the process. Pluto intensifies, purges, will decompose and expose. In Aquarius, it restructures systems, communities, alliances, and the identities we form within them. It will reveal to us where belonging is authentic and where it is strategic, inherited, or maintained out of fear of exclusion.
With the New Moon and Pluto, something at the level of conviction, power, allegiance, or long-held narrative is being reshaped. The shift may begin quietly, but it will run deep. The deeper collective restructuring has begun, but the karmic storyline is still moving toward it.
The eclipse squares Uranus in Taurus, newly direct. Uranus destabilises what has become fixed or complacent. In Taurus, that often means material stability, finances, work patterns, land, or the body.
Something may have been quietly unsustainable, this square now brings friction and asks for action. It invites innovation and fuses with the pull out of the comfort zone we find in Aquarius III. This is where external shifts are pushing internal decisions.
The New Moon also sextiles Saturn conjunct Neptune in Aries. This aspect supports beginnings that will require maturity and faith. Saturn brings accountability, structure and asks for commitment. Neptune dissolves false certainty. In Aries, they ask us to take courageous exploratory steps forward, grounded in responsibility rather than impulse. You may be called to act without knowing exactly where the path leads.
Both benefics are currently exalted. Venus is in Pisces, and Jupiter is in Cancer. There are supportive, nourishing currents moving through the wider field, even if they are not directly engaged with the eclipse which does not receive their support directly. Jupiter is also retrograde, and more concerned with reflections of the past. It shows comfort is not the immediate focus of this moment.
There may be pleasant, stabilising, or even joyful developments happening around you that are not immediately connected to the knot this eclipse is highlighting. The eclipse could feel clarifying or destabilising in one area of life, while elsewhere there is softness, care, or growth quietly unfolding.
Together, these conditions describe a moment where clarity matters more than comfort, and where delay tightens the knot rather than loosening it.
Who This Eclipse Affects Most
This eclipse is especially significant if it closely aspects your Sun, Moon, angles, or chart ruling planet, or if it falls in an angular house in your chart (1st, 4th, 7th, 10th). Also, all those with placements in the last degrees of the fixed signs, Aquarius, Taurus, Leo and Scorpio.
In these cases, the themes of this Moon Family are likely to play out in tangible ways, particularly around disrupted thoughts, roles, and long-standing commitments.
Watch for where intelligent or strategic thinking replaces honesty, or for where loyalty to an old identity is limiting your growth.
The first step to your future often begins with a quiet refusal to continue as before.
And Finally …
The New Moon Eclipse invites us to examine the ties that bind us and the choices that lie before us. With the Sun obscured by the Moon in Aquarius, we are called to balance our personal desires with our responsibilities to the collective and our individual needs.
There will also be an accompanying timeless Astro Meditation, published soon for the decan of Aquarius III which is a useful practice to surrender into the present moment at the time of an Eclipse.
I also suggest taking time to focus on grounding which helps with staying focused on the present moment. If you are not familiar with grounding techniques, this is a comprehensive introduction.
This eclipse asks for clarity, honesty and the courage to act on what you already know.
Travel well friends
Sonia
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