How do eclipses make you feel?

A guide to symptoms and events during eclipse season

It’s almost time for the first set of eclipses in 2025. Eclipse season is always a time when things feel more unstable, uncertain, chaotic and just plain weird.

The first eclipse of this cycle is a lunar eclipse on March 14, 2025 at 23 Virgo. This eclipse is opposite a stellium of Saturn, Sun and Neptune in Pisces. Mercury will also also be the process of stationing retrograde in Aries at this time, conjunct already-retrograde Venus. With all these competing astrological forces, I’m expecting these eclipses to feel especially murky and confusing.

The second eclipse in the cycle is a solar eclipse on March 29, 2025 at 9 Aries. This is the last eclipse of the Aries-Libra axis. It’s also conjunct retrograde Mercury, and occurs just a few hours before Neptune makes its first ingress into Aries. Again, these additional transits and aspects are going to heighten the murky, obscured nature of the eclipse and make things even more confusing and unstable.

I usually feel strange all day when there’s an eclipse. I always play “spot the eclipse events” - these are physical things (see below), feelings, and/or comments from other people along the lines of, “What is up today??” or “Man, I feel super weird,” or “I don’t know what’s going on but things just feel crazy right now.”

I love hearing these comments from non-astrology folks especially, because they are a great litmus test for the current space weather. When I hear a bunch of coworkers, parents at my kids’ school, and/or random people on the bus making comments about how things feel off, a bunch of warning bells go off in my astrologer brain.

I also have to resist an overwhelming urge to scream, “It’s the eclipse! We are in eclipse season!!! The Moon is making you feel that way!!!!!” Though, when I do give into those impulses and comment that there’s an eclipse today, I’m often surprised how many people simply nod and say, “Oh OK, that makes sense!” It’s almost like we instinctively understand that these giant orbs, one that makes life on Earth possible and the other that moves oceans, have an effect on people. Go figure.

I’ve written a lot about eclipses before. Generally, I have a pretty negative view of them, because eclipses can bring a lot of chaos and unpleasantness. However, I always preface that by saying that not all eclipses will be disastrous – we get at least two eclipses twice a year, every year. That’s a minimum of four eclipses a year. If eclipses always heralded disaster and ruin, we’d all be dead long ago.

However, there’s no denying that when really crazy stuff goes down, eclipses are often very much a part of them. So, I err on the side of caution with eclipses and tend to avoid them as much as possible.

But I also find them fascinating. Not only are they one of the most impressive, beautiful astronomical phenomena, I always marvel at their astrology. They can presage huge, life-changing events but sometimes they show up in mundane, even silly occurrences.

Astrology is all about pattern recognition and as an astrologer, I’m always noticing the patterns.

So, as we sail into the bumpy waters of eclipse season, I’ve been ruminating on the common events and symptoms that I notice around eclipses. In no particular order, here’s what I tend to notice and experience during eclipse season. These things can show up throughout eclipse season but are usually more intense right around the day of the actual eclipse.

Fatigue and low energy; sickness

During the last eclipse season, a lunar eclipse occurred shortly after sunset on September 18, 2024. Right around dinner time I was suddenly crushingly tired. The Sun is associated with health and vitality, and the Moon is associated with our emotions and physical body. When eclipses throw the two luminaries out of whack, our bodies correspondingly go haywire and we often feel very tired. We’re also more prone to illness around this time. These symptoms can also come on very fast, like in a matter of minutes or hours.

Feeling giddy and/or intoxicated

This is kind of the reverse of feeling low energy and tired, but sometimes you get both at once – feeling both tired but also messed up, like you’re drunk or high. The Moon has a long history of being associated with craziness and intoxication – remember that the word “lunacy” and “lunatic” come from “lunae”, the Latin word for Moon.

During the last lunar eclipse in September 2024, I got super tired right around the exact eclipse but I also felt like I was drunk. (I was completely sober.) I think it was particularly noticeable during that eclipse, because it was closely conjunct Neptune, the planet that rules drugs/intoxication.

The eclipses in 2025 very closely aspect Neptune too, plus Neptune is making its first Aries ingress right after the second eclipse in the spring. That means 2025’s eclipse seasons will feel especially trippy and surreal.

Eye pain

In astrology, the Sun is associated with eyes and seeing (since it casts the light by which we see during the day). Eclipses are when the Sun or Moon’s light is obscured, and you’ll often notice physical effects on your eyes and eyesight during this time. This tends to be more prominent during solar eclipses, but sometimes I get issues during lunar eclipses too. Watch out for eye pain, strain and even eye rashes or other ailments.

Poor sleep and crazy dreams

Without fail, every eclipse season I have absolutely bizarre dreams. They have a different quality than normal dreams – a sort of epic, “holy shit this means something” quality. Write these down, because they can be very important and even prophetic. Your guides and/or other intelligences are trying to get your attention, so listen!

You’ll also probably have a crappy sleep during eclipses, especially lunar ones. I often have restless nights during normal Full Moons, but during lunar eclipses? Let’s just say I try not to schedule anything in the early morning the day after them.

Sudden shocking events

Every eclipse season I scan the news headlines for the new crop of eclipse stories. They are easy to spot – look for sudden, shocking stories with a serious WTF factor. They are often stories about previously hidden things suddenly coming to light. Conversely, sometimes there are news events during eclipses that seem innocuous at the time, but later on (often during the next eclipse season) they are suddenly revealed as being very important. Again, recall that eclipses are associated with hidden, occulted things.

You’ll see this play out in your own life too, once you start paying attention. It’s not always super shocking or monumental events, either. Sometimes, it’s just things that are super weird or odd.

Make note of weird events like this, because I’m willing to put money on the fact that there will be echoes of that event during the next eclipse season, until they naturally conclude. And more often than not, this conclusion is when the eclipses shift signs.

For example, in spring 2023, I had a very bizarre situation happen at the vacant house next door. This was the first eclipse in the Aries-Libra eclipse cycle. I won’t go into specific details, suffice to say there were further developments with the fall 2023 eclipses, the spring 2024 eclipses and again during the fall 2024 eclipses. Things settled down significantly around the fall 2024 eclipses, which made sense since that was the last eclipse in Libra. There might be another blip this spring with the last eclipse in the Aries-Libra cycle (solar eclipse at 9 Aries on March 29, 2025), but overall the situation has naturally concluded. (Yay!)

The Nodes change signs every 18 months or so, which means eclipses last around 18 to 24 months across a certain axis. After the spring 2025 eclipses, the eclipse cycle will have fully shifted to Virgo-Pisces.

Flickering lights and internet outages

My internet often goes out inexplicably during the day of an eclipse and is often spotty throughout the entire bardo period (the period between eclipses). During the hours right before and during the eclipse, lights will often start randomly flickering. This stops shortly after the eclipse ends. Remember that eclipses are associated with an obscuration of light and sometimes you notice this happening very literally around you.

Because Mercury will be stationing retrograde during the first eclipse in 2025, then be fully retrograde (and in Pisces, the sign of its fall, to boot) during the second eclipse, expect the technology issues to be particularly ramped up. Seriously, back up your stuff ASAP.

Plumbing and drainage issues

This is especially true around South Node (Ketu) eclipses, because the South Node is associated with things being drained away – and sometimes this becomes very literal. It can also be more prominent when the eclipse is in a water sign.

Right around the lunar eclipse on September 17, 2024, which was a North Node (Rahu) eclipse but in the water sign of Pisces, my dishwasher started having weird drainage issues. As well, both my sister and my parents had to call a plumber to fix their kitchen sinks, as they had become completely plugged. It’s actually kind of hilarious how literal it was (though the plumbing bills were much less funny).

Lots of sirens

This is a coded way of saying that eclipses hit some people hard. Like, life-threatening-medical-event-or-accident hard. It depends on how the eclipse lands in your chart, and again, most of us will be fine. However, remember that eclipses often bring on sickness and they are associated with sudden random shocking events. Medical events and accidents certainly fit that description. I often use eclipses for rectification when people have life-or-death situations, because of how often they line up with such events.

Without fail, on eclipse days it seems like I hear sirens non-stop. I live near a busy road so sirens are common, but they are noticeably more frequent during eclipses. I remember on the day of the September 17, 2024 lunar eclipse, my husband witnessed three separate accidents - with an ambulance on scene - in only a 15-minute drive.

So, take care of yourself and others during eclipse season. For some good remediation tips, read this post.