The total lunar eclipse (”Blood Moon”) on March 3, 2026, will feature 58 minutes of totality, with the main event (totality) occurring from 11:04 UTC to 12:03 UTC. For North America, this means pre-dawn viewing on March 3rd: 3:04 a.m. PST (totality begins), with maximum eclipse at 3:33 a.m. PST. Eclipses always come in pairs (a full moon lunar and a new moon solar about 2 weeks apart). These sequences happen twice a year, and are known as eclipse seasons/eclipse portals. We just had a solar eclipse in Aquarius on February 17th, and now, 2 weeks later, we’re meeting it’s counterpart: the lunar eclipse in Virgo.
When I think about eclipses, I think about the earth. Eclipses are times in the year when the earth’s shadow covers the moon, and when the moon perfectly covers the sun (but only from from our perspective here on earth). Eclipses are reminders of our home, our place of observation. We can look at the glowing white moon and starry dark skies every other time of the year, but eclipse seasons are like celestial nudges to remember our terrestrial vantage point, the important of the place where the soles of our feet are planted.
For this reason of shadow, obscuration, and earthly focus, eclipses are not good times to manifest or use lunar magic (leave your crystals indoors this full moon, friends). Eclipses are good times to find a nook in the side of a canyon or a craggy tree where the physical earth can hold you, and give you a hug. Reminding you that, despite the powerful lights in the sky getting a little wonky, the earth will continue to support you with her consistent turning, her magical gravity.
Here’s an IG post I made about this last eclipse season:
Eclipsing Virgo’s Gate of Confusion & Imagination
This particular Lunar Eclipse is happening in the middle degrees of the sign of Virgo, in Human Design Gate 64, the last of the 64 gates of the I’Ching. In that ancient Book of Changes, this gate is known as “Before Completion”, hinting at the fact that an ending is always a seed for a new beginning.
In the Gene Keys, 64 carries the energy of Confusion > Imagination > Illumination. This is the gate where the sun was when I was born, so this eclipse packs a special punch for me (last September’s new moon solar eclipse in Virgo was also in this gate, so think back to September 7-8 of 2025 for hints as to what this eclipse might bring up for you). I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Gate 64, and the dance that has always played out in my life between the shadow of confusion and the gift of imagination.
(Thinking about this dualism between manifestations of this gate’s energies was my inspiration to make the MANDALA 64 deck last year— I wanted a way to tangibly flip the script between the two words on my altar!)
This eclipse season is reminding me that my confusion has never been a flaw, but it has been a threshold. In my life a swirl of confusion tends to arrive right before a big leap or epiphany, right before the next layer of meaning reveals itself to me, like the imaginal cells in a chrysalis before they differentiate and become a butterfly. Right now I can feel that familiar Gate 64 weather in my body- the restless mind, the half-formed images, and a strange sense that something is rearranging behind the scenes.
Since it’s a south node eclipse on my birthday/sun gate, I’m noticing what I’m ready to release as far my solar presence, how I shine in the world. I’ve long carried a reflex to treat uncertainty like an emergency, had a constant urge to over-explain myself, and brought along with me the habit of turning my own process into a performance so other people feel comfortable.
September showed me this pattern on the solar eclipse in this Virgo gate, and I feel like March is asking me to trust it. To let the messy middle be holy by staying close to what is unclear but emergent, and to choose imagination as a form of devotion rather than a way of escaping what I feel.
There’s something almost merciful in the mechanics of it. With the Sun in Gate 63: Doubt, that side of the 63/64 polarity is lit up in the collective field. With the sun in Gate 63, the mind wants proof and to interrogate everything it comes across… just to be sure. Yet during a lunar eclipse, the Earth steps in and interrupts the sun’s light shining from that gate. For a moment, doubt is not driving the whole system. On this eclilpse, the light that wants to “figure it out” gets muted, and what remains is the felt experience of Gate 64 in our bodies: the images, the fragments, and the intuition that arrives before language.
Since the South Node is in Virgo (in Gate 40, solitude, next to gate 64), this is also a tail-of-the-dragon release point for me- and for all of us. e just left the snake year behind, but here’s another chance for karmic shedding. For me, amidst the haze of eclipse season and mercury retrograde, I can still feel what I’m done carrying: the addiction to mental static, the habit of spinning in the fog because it feels safer than illuminating a direction, and the old story that my emphasis on imaginal cells means I’m behind. This eclipse is helping me let Gate 64 do what it was built to do, to compost the past, to clear the psychic clutter, and to make room for imagination to ripen into illumination.
During this eclipse, the sun is flanked on either side by several planets in Pisces- one planet or celestial point in each gate of Pisces, in fact:
A mega Pisces stellium: collective permeability in late-stage Pisces
A Pisces-heavy sky makes the world more permeable. People pick up signals faster. Dreams get louder. Grief and beauty travel through the same channels. The imagination is fertile.
This also creates a pressure to blur. The collective field can lean toward fog, toward sedation, toward stories that soothe without changing anything. That is part of what I mean by late-stage Pisces themes. Pisces carries the long human education in faith, sacrifice, salvation, and longing. Over time, those teachings mature. They move from fantasy into lived compassion. They move from spiritual ideals into practical repair. They move from collapse into devotion.
So the Pisces stellium becomes an amplifier. It magnifies sensitivity, and it magnifies the need for grounded discernment. Virgo is the companion here. Virgo makes a vessel for what Pisces reveals.
The 63–64 axis: Earth as teacher
The 63–64 axis is a mind-axis, with both of these gates located in the head center in the bodygraph. The polarity of gates from the end of the I’Ching *is about how we metabolize and alchemize uncertainty.
Gate 63 is the pressure to question. It sharpens the intellect through doubt, and it can refine into inquiry and truth. Gate 64 is the pressure of unfinished meaning, where images arrive in fragments, and memory and symbolism swirl. Over time, with patience, confusion ripens into imagination and illumination.
The lunar eclipse turns this into a physical teaching. The Earth moves between the Sun and the Moon, and the Moon enters shadow. So if the Sun is in 63, the light from the questioning mind is normally lit up. The eclipse changes the quality of that light, obscuring it with the tangible reality of this moment on earth. It slows the rush toward certainty, and emphasizes better questions, deeper listening, and patience with what is still forming.
When the Moon is in 64, the felt experience of confusion is front and center. The eclipse gives that confusion a body. It becomes visceral, intimate, something you can breathe with- and find illumination through.
Quick overview of the Pisces gates in play
Here’s the Pisces playing field of this eclipse:
Mars in Gate 55 brings emotional sovereignty to the surface. Freedom becomes a relationship with mood, desire, and inner climate.
North Node in Gate 37 move the storyline of belonging and will. It highlights the collective hunger/nostalgia for agreements, support, reciprocity, and the right use of energy in relationship and work.
The Sun in Gate 63 focuses on questions. The mind is trying to get an answer through curiosity and doubt. Suspicion can be purified into clean inquiry.
Mercury Retrograde in Gate 22 draws attention to tone, timing, and grace. With the retrograde here, language becomes a mirror, and conversations ask to be re-approached with tenderness and dignity.
Venus in Gate 36 intensifies the heart’s learning curve. It brings experiences that educate compassion through real feeling, and through the willingness to stay present while the wave moves, through distilling what of the infinite stew of pisces we want to bring with us into the new world.
Gate 25 sits at the Pisces–Aries threshold and carries a particular charge right now with Saturn and Neptune. It asks for innocence with backbone. It asks for love that can hold reality. It asks for spiritual openness that does not dissolve the self.
Thanks for being here!
I’d also love to invite you to join me for the final Zodiac Breathwork Journey & Workshop of the 2025/2026 Astrological Year, centered on the deep and beautiful waters of PISCES! It’s happening on March 11th from 5-7pm MST on Zoom (rescheduled from March 4th).
These breathwork journies have been so nourishing over the past 12 months, carving out space to chat about the astrology, human design, and elemental reflections of the season we’re moving through.
We begin with an hour of lecture and interactive workshopping the archetypes and symbols of the season, and then move into a 40-minute Revolutionary Breathwork journey. This is a guided breath session set to music that can help move emotions that feel stuck in your body and connect with your higher self. The theme this month for pisces season is INTERCONNECTION.
OR, you can become a paid subscriber and get free tickets to all of my Breathwork Journeys throughout the year- plus workbooks, guided practices, and seasonal prompts to help you integrate what you’re moving through. You’ll have a steady rhythm of support, a clear container to return to, and a community that practices alongside you.
Thanks for being here. If you find resonance in what you read, please leave a comment, share, or heart this post! <3 <3 <3
To orient toward your inner hearth within these changing spirals of time, book a “Find Your Shine” Astro-Human Design reading with me:
